A Theme for Novelists

IT is noticeable that the Revolution, the greatest of themes from our early history, still awaits adequate treatment in fiction ; yet one may remind himself that where great events of history are to be dealt with in fiction, rather than spiritual experiences or a peculiar mode of life poetical in itself, a certain lapse of time is required to add glamour to the hard reality ; and in the case of our Revolution there are special reasons why an adequate treatment has been impossible hitherto. The events of that war were small in appearance, and their real magnitude can be rightly appreciated only now that the prophetic enthusiasm of the leaders of the period has become a living truth. Other causes are at work. The large inroads of strange peoples into the land, the threatened dissolution of the old homogeneous life, the longing to escape the dead level of democracy, have turned men, and especially women, to contemplate the heroic age of national creation with something of extravagant patriotism. Sons of the Revolution. Daughters of the Revolution, Colonial Dames, and what not, seem at times a somewhat wearisome travesty of the sober Society of the Cincinnati ; yet the movement is due to the same feeling that is reflected in recent literature.

In the case of the Revolution, moreover, there is need of rather delicate handling in the use of humor. It is impossible to lend the Tory society of the colonies anything like the color and stateliness of an ancient aristocracy ; but it is susceptible of humorous treatment ; its mingled provinciality and pretension are the proper material for kindly irony. So, too, on the Whig side, to produce any strong impression the real democratic homespun character of the movement must be accepted ; and here again there is room for irony. Valley Forge will never be vividly portrayed until the vast incongruity of the scene is grasped. The ragged mob of disheartened soldiers, the utter mismanagement of the commissariat, on the one side, and on the other side the blustering debates of Congress, — there is a motive whose picturesque humor Hugh Wynne, the best novel we have yet had on the period, quite fails to seize. But the humorous must be duly mixed with the grave. There was in the hearts of these men such a settled rage as could lead John Adams to write that he thought " medals in gold, silver, and copper ought to be struck in commemoration of the shocking cruelties, the brutal barbarities, and the diabolical impieties of this war ; and these should be contrasted with the kindness, tenderness, humanity, and philanthropy which have marked the conduct of Americans towards their prisoners.” Nor, if we read the relations of Freneau and others who suffered imprisonment, shall we be inclined altogether to condemn this indignation. And in the breasts of wise men there was such a hope and assurance as could lead the prudent Franklin to foresee in vision the mighty realm them founding, and to predict that by the loss of her colonies the British Empire would be brought to dissolution. The hero of the story we look for must have indignation like Adams’s, and assurance like Franklin’s.